


Home

by chwheeler



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chwheeler/pseuds/chwheeler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home. What did you need a home for? A house? Bull. More like a stoop to crash on for the night. Spot Conlon didn't have a home. Spot Conlon didn't need a home. Racetrack knew better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies or any of the characters depicted in this work of fiction. I am not making any sort of profit from this fic. It was done purely for fun!
> 
> I'm not entirely sure where this came from. It started as a freeflow exercise until Spot managed to bash his way into the sixth sentence. And then, to my surprise, this story came pouring out. This is unbeta'ed, so all mistakes are wholly mine.
> 
> About the Rating: Because Spot and Race always manage swear when I write them, there is harsh language present in this fic. However, because there is also some very minor violence and blood present in the fic, I felt that a "teen and up" rating was a better choice.

Home. What the fuck did you need a home for? A house? Bullshit. More like a stoop to crash on for the night. Spot Conlon didn’t have a home. Spot Conlon didn’t _need_ a home. Spot Conlon had a borough. Even better, Spot Conlon had a whole fucking city. If home is where the heart is, Spot had the biggest heart of them all. Home was wherever Spot needed it to be. It just happened that some nights, in fact _most_ nights, home happened to be exactly where Racetrack Higgins was.

Spot would refuse to acknowledge the fact that home was quite often, more often than any other newsie would guess, exactly where Racetrack was. His Brooklynites would never even dream of making such a suggestion. The Manhattan boys, the ones Racetrack knew best, had their thoughts, but they knew better than to voice those thoughts. Spot tried to act like his home was wherever his ass hit the ground, be it inside or out. Racetrack knew better.

Racetrack knew the meaning of a home. Hell, he used to have one. Small, crappy, every space filled with family of some sort. He was small, runty, got kicked around. He didn’t miss that home.

Racetrack would also never acknowledge that his home was more often than not exactly where Spot Conlon happened to be. He was just less pissy about the idea of it. Racetrack was usually less pissy than Spot about everything, though.

Warehouses, street corners, alleyways. If Spot was there, Racetrack wasn’t far behind. And the nights that Racetrack made the Manhattan lodging house his home, Spot pretended that he didn’t want Racetrack there anyway. The bum was always stealing his good sleeping spots. Even if it was more often the other way around.

This continued for years and years, Spot not having a home.

Once they grew too old plus a few years to pass for lodging house age, Racetrack got a “real” home. One bedroom… actually, that’s about it. Small, crappy, former newsies usually crashing in corners until they got on their feet. Racetrack liked this home; he even called it home, although sometimes disdainfully. Spot called it shit and pretended that he didn’t live there.

Racetrack worked all day to pay for his small, crappy home. He was actually kind of proud of himself. And what he didn’t lose to rent and some measly food, he tucked away for a day at the races. And when that day came, he went, bet like he loved to, and walked home. His pockets were usually empty, but he didn’t care. He still had a home to walk to. Often on that walk, he’d buy a pape, and overpay the scruffy kid on purpose.

Spot worked all night, usually jobs that were shady as hell. He’d do what he did and make his way to Racetrack’s home around dawn, pockets full of cash. Spot didn’t want Racetrack to know what he did, and Racetrack was perfectly okay with that. Race didn’t really want to know. Too many years as a newsie and on the street taught him that ignorance was the better choice.

On Spot’s way in, stepping over whoever happened to be bumming on the floor that week, he’d wake up Race, who slept in a Murphy bed. It was the only furniture that would fit, besides the crappy table and chairs. Race would get up to go to work and Spot would lay exactly where Race used to be, falling asleep almost instantly.

More often than not, Spot would help Race pay his rent, even if Race could pay for the whole thing. Spot said it was compensation for letting him sleep there sometimes. Race knew it was so there would be some leftover change to go into his gambling fund. Race thanked Spot for the “compensation”, rolled his eyes, and let Spot continue his charade.

It was a cycle that continued, week in and week out, and they were both comfortable with that cycle. Even if Spot refused to acknowledge that any such cycle existed. Race knew and that was where it counted.

When they were very lucky, the floor would be empty and Spot and Racetrack had to share the air with only each other. If they were even luckier, they would both be in the apartment at the same time. If Race had to guess, it took the planets to align for _that_ to happen, it happened so infrequently. But when it did, they considered it some of the luckiest moments of their lives. Both Race and Spot were _exceptionally_ good at pretending those moments didn’t happen.

The cycle continued, until one day it didn’t anymore. Spot didn’t stroll in at dawn. Racetrack woke up three hours later than he was supposed to, swore up and down while struggling into his clothes, and ran to work. He was relieved to find out that, no, he wasn’t fired.  He apologized profusely, got to work, and silently cursed Spot out in his head. It wasn’t until a few hours later that he even wondered why Spot never came home.

After his shift, he walked home, picking up some food along the way. Simple street vender stuff, the kind you could eat on the go. He was expecting to find Spot in bed, just waking up from sleeping all day. He usually left for his mysterious job just after Race got home.

What he wasn’t expecting was to find Spot curled on the ground, blood pooling around him. He dropped the food he had bought for Spot, having already eaten his, and rushed to Spot’s side. He collapsed to his knees, grabbing and turning the bloody man around to see. Spot emitted a loud groan, for which Race silently thanked Jesus, Mary, _and_ Joseph.

Race couldn’t help but see the deep gash crossing Spot’s right arm and continuing into his chest. Acid rushed up his throat and he spun around, to avoid vomiting all over Spot. After the bile and stomach contents all came out, he spit, trying to stop the gagging.

“Are you done over there? I need to get up from this fucking floor.” Spot’s voice was rough. Race could hear the pain behind the words.

“Holy shit, Conlon,” Race croaked out. Gently putting his hands underneath Spot’s uninjured arm, Race carefully pulled them both to their feet. They slowly moved to the bed, sitting down side by side. “What the fuck happened?”

“I tripped on a curb. What d’ya think happened?” Spot slowly lowered himself down to lie on the bed, being careful to avoid his right side. Race couldn’t keep a small hysterical laugh from escaping.

“You’re such an asshole.” He got up and grabbed some old shirts, wetting them in the small sink in the corner. He crossed back to Spot and began cleaning around the wound, clearing the blood away. The ugly gash wasn’t too bad once the blood was gone, Race was glad to notice. Spot laid still, eyes closed; only making small noises when Race got too close to area clotting over. The number of expletives Race muttered rose exponentially the more he cleaned.

“What are you swearin so much for, it’s my damn arm.” Spot squinted at Race, the pain in his voice less noticeable.

“Fuck off and hold still.” After the blood was no longer caked on Spot’s torso and bicep, Race dropped the bloody shirts into the sink, stepping over the mess on the floor. “Damn you, Conlon. Damn you and the horse you rode in on.”

“What, you want me to leave?” Spot gingerly pulled himself into a sitting position. “I’m only here because I knew you’d help clean me up. I can leave.” He stood up from the bed, wobbling slightly from blood loss.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Race filled the sink with water, hoping to soak the blood out of the few clothes that they owned. He felt his stomach roil again.

“What else could you mean?” Spot started to walk unsteadily towards the door.

“Sit down, you stubborn bastard.” Spot rolled his eyes and continued his shaky journey.

“Why should I? It’s not like there’s anything keeping me here.” He tried to ignore the stormy expression developing on Race’s face.

“No, Spot, I highly disagree! I’m here, in case you forgot. I live here, as do you!” Spot began to look pissed off.

“I don’t live here, I don’t live nowhere.”

“That’s the biggest bullshit lie to have ever come out of your mouth and I would know. This is your _home_ , Spot. You know what a home is? H-O-M-E?” Spot froze a few feet away from the door. He refused to look behind him at Race. “You know, that place you live with people you like to live with? That fucking place. That place where I live! Yeah, remember me?” Spot quietly mumbled something. “I’m sorry, what was that? My hearing ain’t so good, on account of I don’t exist in your world!”

“I don’t _have_ a home.” Spot looked no where except at the door handle. Race scoffed. They stood silent. A few awkward moments passed until Race finally replied.

“Fine, Spot. If that’s what you want to keep telling yourself, congratulations. You managed to bend reality to your whims. You don’t have a home. And since you don’t have a home, get the fuck outta mine.” Race didn’t stop him from turning the door knob and walking out.

It took Race hours to clean the floor, to make the blood truly disappear. He scrubbed his hands raw trying to get the dried stains from under his fingernails. The last thing he needed was for someone to think he’d finally murdered a guy. It was slightly disconcerting when he realized that people would think he was even capable of doing so. It took a few more hours for him to leave the apartment on a quest to find Spot. He didn’t have far to go.

“Spot, I know you’re back here,” Race called into an alley just around the corner.

“Fuck off!” Race rolled his eyes and ventured into the dark alley, ignoring the feeling of danger night had brought upon it. He found Spot sitting against the wall, his wound covered by a shirt.

“Where’d you get the shirt?” Even though it was dark, Race could see the withering look Spot had chosen to reply with. “Get up and come back inside. You’ll get infected out here and, god help me, I’d rather you weren’t dead.”

“Almost was anyway, what does it matter now?” Race sat down next to him, on his left.

“It matters to me, you ignoramus. I don’t care what you do or when you do it, but I do care whether you come back or not. Especially if you come back with your chest fucking ripped open.” Race nudged his shoulder with Spot’s. “We’re both stubborn idiots. You do know that, right?”

“How’d you know where I was gonna be?” Spot had his eyes closed again, his breathing faintly rough.

“You’ve been coming to this alley since you first started selling papes. You pretend to have no home, yet you keep showing up in the same places. You’re like a fuckin homing pigeon.”

They sat in silence, listening to the noises the city made at night. Race listened to Spot’s breathing even out. Looking over, he brushed aside the hair falling into the sleeping man’s face. After a few more moments, he tapped Spot awake.

“Come on, let’s go.” Spot grumbled the entire way back to the building and grumbled even more on the way up the stairs. Once through the door, they both collapsed on the bed.

“I was right, you know. I don’t have a home.” Spot no longer sounded rough with pain. He sounded sleepy and content.

Race stayed silent. They stared up together, into the darkness of the ceiling, silently believing it could hide them from the world and everyone in it.

A slight hesitation in his voice, Spot finished his thought. “I don’t need a home. I have you.” As Spot drifted off to sleep, Race hid the smile on his face. He knew Spot would refuse to acknowledge that he had ever uttered something so incredibly sappy once the sun came up. Race didn’t care; it was likely he’d never acknowledge such a sappy thing was said about him. Because what the fuck did Spot Conlon need a home for? Racetrack knew exactly why.


End file.
